Resident Evil games tend to bring the worst out of me. I usually enjoy the first few hours of the game, until I reach a boss that I can never kill for the life of me.

All that changed after I played Resident Evil 4.

Unlike the previous games, this survival horror game actually gave me the opportunity to shoot enemies in the style of a first-person shooter. This simple game mechanic made the entire universe much easier for me.

The first boss, Del Lago, wasn’t especially hard. It was simply a matter of throwing harpoons at some eel monster.

The second boss, El Gigante, was a different matter. I strolled through a wooden gate in the pouring rain, holding a simple pistol. The gate slammed shut. The zombies then released my worst nightmare—a 25-foot tall giant with a brutal hand-smashing technique.

Yeah, this matchup is a little unfair.

I’d never seen a giant as close and menacing as this one. Come to think of it, I actually saw a giant in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. However, that guy was very tame, compared to the giant in Resident Evil 4. To make matters worse, he lifted up a huge tree to bash me into submission.

I panicked. El Gigante smashed me mercilessly on my first two tries. I couldn’t bear thinking how my character, Leon, could survive even one smash from that big guy. I guess he must have an adamantium skeleton, like Wolverine.

Once I figured out a way to run under his legs and shoot him, the battle became much easier. On top of that, I was playing the Wii version. I could simply point and shoot with my Wii remote. For the first time, I actually stopped worrying so much about aiming my gun in a Resident Evil game. The battle became even sillier when a dog I had saved earlier was helping to distract Gigante.

It didn’t take long before I whittled El Gigante down with my shotgun. Honestly, I shouldn’t have worried so much about this boss. Just the thought of feeling extreme pain is terrifying for me, though. That’s what makes Resident Evil 4 more thrilling than any other survival horror game I’ve ever played.

To tell the truth, El Gigante wasn’t nearly as bad as the moment in stage 2-2, when the horde of zombies trapped me inside a house with minimal amounts of ammo. Looking back on it though, I’m more terrified of a giant who can literally smash all the bones in my body. That would feel twenty times more painful than a zombie who stabbed me to death.

At least a stab wound will kill me more quickly than a giant bashing my skull in. That’s what I’d like to think, anyhow.

Do you think I'm overreacting? Is there a moment that is actually more terrifying than this one in Resident Evil 4? Post it in the comments below.